In the classical Greek account preserved in summaries of Ovid and Diodorus, Cyane is a local spring-nymph who witnessed Hades' abduction of Persephone near Syracuse. In Ovid's narrative she tries to block Hades and, when unable to prevent the abduction, cries until she dissolves into her own tears and mixes with the waters of the pool; Diodorus reports that the abduction caused a fresh spring to gush forth which was thereafter called Cyane (the 'Azure Fount') and was sacred to the maiden goddess. The tale functions etiologically to connect a named Sicilian spring with the myth of Persephone and to explain the spring's name and sanctity.
Ancient summaries do not preserve an extended physical portrait beyond Cyane's status as a nymph and playmate of Persephone. Ovid presents her as a speaking, acting naiad who confronts Hades; literary and archaeological references note that Cyane and the river-god Anapus were honored in Sicily with images depicting them in human form, indicating cult statuary or representations that show her anthropomorphically. No consistent inventory of specific bodily details (height, coloration beyond the name meaning 'dark blue') survives in the cited sources.
Attested actions in the myth include speech and physical attempt at obstruction (Cyane 'tried to block his way' and shouted that Hades could not take Persephone by force), mourning-led metamorphosis (she 'cried bitterly ... and dissolved into her own tears, mixing with the waters of the pool' in Ovid), and causing a sign to appear in the water (Ovid reports that, though she had no tongue or mouth to inform Demeter, she made Persephone's girdle rise to the surface so Demeter would know her daughter had been stolen). These abilities are local and tied to her spring; she is unable to overpower Hades and thus demonstrates limits when confronted by major deities.
Weaknesses
- otherOverborne by greater deities (unable to stop Hades)
Wards
- othernone attested
Anansi
The spider trickster god of Akan folklore — cunning, mischievous, and wise. Keeper of stories and teacher of human beings, brought through the slave trade into Caribbean and African-American tradition.
Anapus
Anapus (Ancient Greek: Ἄναπος) is the personification and divine presence of a river called Anapus/Anapo in Greek tradition. Best attested in eastern Sicily where Syracusans worshiped him and depicted him as a young man, the name also appears for a separate river in ancient Acarnania.
*Péh₂usōn (reconstructed)
Péh₂usōn is a hypothetical Proto‑Indo‑European pastoral guardian reconstructed by comparative scholars from parallels in Greek and Vedic traditions. Proposed as a Graeco‑Aryan ancestor‑figure, the reconstruction describes a protector of flocks, roads, and travellers rather than an attested historical cultic personality.
Aba (disambiguation / name-form)
Aba is a polyvalent name-form attested across many unrelated contexts (place names, personal names, animal names, and brief mythological listings). The provided sources do not support a single, coherent supernatural entity called "Aba" and offer no descriptive or ritual material for such a being.
Abarbarea
Abarbarea is a name attested in classical Greek and Roman sources for freshwater nymphs (naiads). The name appears for at least two individual mythic figures — a naiad wife of Bucolion and a naiad counted among ancestors of the Tyrians — and Hesychius records plural forms that may indicate the name was also used as a class-name (Abarbareai / Abarbalaiai).
Abas
Abas (Ancient Greek: Ἄβας, gen.: Ἄβαντος) is not a single mythic being but a recurring personal name borne by multiple mortals and minor mythic figures in Greek epic and genealogical traditions — kings, founders, seers, warriors, attendants, a centaur, and a youth transformed by a goddess. The name is glossed in the sources as 'guileless' or 'good-hearted' and appears across Argive, Theban, Trojan, Euboean, and other local cycles.
Abderus
Abderus (Ancient Greek: Ἄβδηρος, romanized Ábdēros) is a mortal heroic figure in Greek myth closely associated with Heracles, remembered as the youth left in charge of the Mares of Diomedes who was killed by them. He functions as an eponymous local/divine-hero ancestor for the city of Abdera and received funerary commemoration and athletic agones at his tomb.
Abomination of Desolation
An apocalyptic prophetic phrase originating in the Book of Daniel designating a profaning thing or act that renders the Jerusalem Temple cult desolate; later reused in the Synoptic Gospels as an eschatological sign prompting urgent flight. The term denotes ritual/cultic impurity (Hebrew shiqquts) and is variously interpreted as pagan offerings or altar, a foreign cult statue, or (in some New Testament readings) an acting agent.
Absyrtus
Absyrtus (Ancient Greek: Ἄψυρτος) is a Colchian prince in the Greek Argonautic cycle, son of King Aeëtes and brother or half-brother of Medea. He appears in variant traditions either as a companion taken by Medea during her flight with Jason and murdered/dismembered to delay pursuit, or as a pursuer sent by Aeëtes who is overtaken and slain by Jason; his death functions as a key narrative device in the escape from Colchis.
Acacallis
Acacallis (Ancient Greek: Ἀκακαλλίς; also Acalle) is a mythological princess of Crete in Greek tradition, daughter of King Minos and Pasiphae. She functions primarily as a dynastic and etiological figure: in varying accounts she is mother, by gods such as Hermes (Mercury) or Apollo, of eponymous or founder-figures like Cydon (founder of Cydonia), Miletus, or Lydon/ Lydus.
Acacus
Acacus (Ancient Greek: Ἄκακος) is, in Arcadian Greek tradition, a mortal eponymous founder-king of Acacesium and is remembered as the foster-father who reared the infant Hermes (Mercury) in that local tradition. He is presented in genealogies as a son of Lycaon and functions as a local ancestral/onomastic figure rather than a supernatural spirit.
Academus
Academus (Greek: Akádemos / Hekádemos) is an Attic hero-eponym tied to a sacred grove (Akademeia) on the Cephissus near Athens. In myth he revealed where Helen was hidden to the Dioskouroi, an act said to have saved the city, and the place bearing his name became a long-lived sacred precinct, later the site of Plato's Academy.
Acamas
Acamas (Ancient Greek: Ἀκάμας) is a personal name recurrent in ancient Greek narrative traditions applied to multiple human characters (warriors, princes, suitors), once to a Cyclops, and once as a hound's name. Rather than a single supernatural entity, bearers of the name appear episodically across the Trojan War, Theseid, and Theban cycles as mortal actors whose deeds intersect with gods and fate.
Acantha
Acantha (Ancient Greek: Ἀκάνθα, 'thorn') is a late or secondary mythological figure known from modern retellings as a nymph transformed into the acanthus plant. The tale that she scratched Apollo and was changed into a spiny-leaved plant is not attested in surviving classical corpora and appears to be a modern compilation or invention rather than a firmly documented ancient myth.
Community Record
- [1]Cyane — Wikipedia. Wikipedia, 'Cyane' entry summarizing Ovid and Diodorus Siculus on the Sicilian nymphwiki
- [2]Wikidata: Cyanea. Wikidata item linked to the name Cyanea/Cyaneother
- [3]Best of Sicily Magazine — Kyane/Ciane: Water nymph of Greek Sicily. Popular cultural summary of the Cyane tradition noting the Sicilian spring association (used for corroboration of local tradition in provided corpus)other